Hero of War
by avete
Summary: 16 years is a long time to run from the past.
1. Auld Lang Syne

Hero of War

Attestation I:

Auld Lang Syne

January 1, 2032

It was a minute after midnight on the dawn of the new year and it would be just like the sixteen before it. Every year before it on new years eve I'd either be drunk or wishing I was, alone... or wishing I was.

Even in a crowd, at least the kind I attracted, I was alone. I could put on the brave smile or give a little speech and all these years later they still wanted to hear what I had to say, touch my hand, get my autograph, take a picture.

I was sick of it, but nobody would listen. Nobody could really understand and anyone who did, well, they had better places to be.

Even as much as I wanted to be alone I still went out to the bars because I couldn't stand the quiet. Too many thoughts through my head, even now, second guessing myself. After the first few thousand people told me I saved the world I had a hard time remembering what parts were real and what parts were the hero worship bleeding through into my memory.

It always came back to me, because I wasn't allowed to forget.

I tapped the side of my empty glass and the bartender came down the bar to my stool. "Asuka, you know you're the only reason we even keep this on tap, you might wanna slow down a little bit, yeah?"

I loved this bar, as much as I loved anything. The hero worship still came shining through but at least they had enough respect and restraint not to use me to bring in crowds. It was about as private as I could get in public.

"Maybe on another day. I'm not slowing down on new years. Fill It up, keep em coming."

He shook his head at me, judging me. At least someone did. Maybe the veneer was finally flaking off and someone might actually see me for who I was. If I even-

The glass clanked down in front of me, a pint of cheap Japanese _pißwasser_ that no self respecting German would ever drink, so it was lucky that I wasn't. Andreas didn't understand why I drank it, but he didn't have to understand; he just had to pour.

I drank it to remember and to forget. It was memorial and penance, and it served that purpose well.

It wasn't the only time of year and if anyone was left who really cared they'd have told me years ago that I shouldn't spend all my free time at the bar. The bar, 'The Usual Haunt', was definitely _mine_. I'd had more drinks and more meals in the not-quite-grungy one room tavern than I could reasonably count.

I didn't always eat and drink alone but I always went home that way. I didn't have the stomach or the taste for male company and the hero worship got old ten years ago, maybe even before that.

Andreas was a good man, or at least good to me. He was easily old enough to be my father but was set apart from him in that _Andreas_ actually gave me something I needed.

The glass was empty as quickly as it had been filled and everything was a little more muted than usual. The necessary _fog_ on the world that made it tolerable, palatable, _digestable_.

Twelve thirty-six. My yearly obligation to show my face in public and accept praise on the anniversary of my 'victory' was over. I made for the door and the few people milling about the bar parted like the red sea.

The heavy wooden door creaked when I pushed on it, as it had every time before. The night air was brisk, a nice chill that was a nice reprieve from the warmth that most to the year brought. It gave me an excuse to wear a scarf and hide my face. Avoid attention just long enough to get home and into bed.

The cobblestones were uneven underfoot and to anyone else who'd consumed as much Japanese malt-water as I had it would have posed a hazard. It was fine for me though. I was a professional. I'd _been_ a professional in more ways than one.

Salvation day, survival day, _redemption_ day. They could call it what they wanted and pin any medal they wanted to my chest and they'd do it all for themselves. It had been too late for me on the day I'd been born and it just took me until then to realize it.

To me, I wasn't a hero. I still wouldn't have done any of it differently. That had always been the problem for him. Knowing I'd do it all again the very same way. He'd never accepted that. And he'd always leave.

There were some things all the drinking in the world couldn't take away from me and the years of paranoia had only sharpened some skills. I knew by the second corner I'd gone around on the way back to my apartment that I was being followed. It had happened enough all those years ago and it had happened enough in all the years in between.

"I don't have anything for you to steal." I called out over my shoulder, but I didn't stop walking, nor did they. Footsteps clicking against pavement, maybe ten meters behind me. A hard soled shoe, not a soft rubber like a sneaker or a running shoe.

Section Two had always used hard soled dress shoes, they were to convey a look more than anything practical. It was an intimidation trick, but they could back it up so there was something behind it too. When I sped up, so did it.

"Listen, go fuck yourself. Whatever you want, I don't care, go away!" I yelled, maybe a little too loudly, but it was bullshit I didn't need. Mugger or pan-handler or hero worshipper, I didn't care.

I stopped near a gap in the buildings and the walking behind me did't. Click, click, clack. I felt a hand touch my shoulder and I spun around to backhand the person behind me. The slap of my skin against their face echoed down the road when I pushed them into the alley.

My hand was around their throat and I had them pinned against the wall and I was squeezing down before I realized it was a woman a little younger than me. The part of me that might have cared and given her the benefit of the doubt for those two facts died in a hospital bed in Tokyo-3. "What part of 'Go fuck yourself' was difficult for you to understand? I want to be left alone."

She pushed my hand off her throat and I let her. She rubbed her neck and straightened up her shirt. "Asuka Langley Soryu, right? I've been looking all over for you."

I took a step back and threw my arms up, "Well, you found me. What do you want? An Autograph? Shake my hand? Tell me how much you appreciate what I did? What's it gonna take to get you to _fuck off_?"

"Just a few minutes of your time, actually. My name is Carolina Curtiss and I'm taking a film crew into Tokyo-3. I want you to be there." She answered with a smile that made me want to throw hands. Like I'd ever want to go back there.

"Why in the hell would you want to do something stupid like that? There's a _reason_ we've never been back, and nothing you can offer me that'll make me go back there. If you're done pissing up a rope I've got a bed and a bottle of sleeping pills to get back to," I hissed at her as I turned away. A herd of wild horses and an act of parliament wouldn't get me back into what was left of that city.

"We're prepared to pay you a... well a ludicrous amount of money for it. If that's not compelling enough, perhaps you'd do it for Misa-"

I had my hand back on her throat and squeezing down before I really realized what I was doing, my teeth were bared and my heart was beating in my ears. "Don't even finish that thought," I hissed dangerously.

"I'll keep quiet then. We'll see you at the train station tomorrow."

She had me over a barrel and she knew it, and I couldn't do anything about it. I didn't know how she knew, but just knowing that she did was enough.

I didn't say anything back to her, she'd won and she knew it. The rest of the walk back to my apartment was... colder. I was used to dealing with people, at least far enough so that I didn't have to _keep_ dealing with them but it had been years since someone had rattled me like that.

She shouldn't have known that name, there was no reason for her to know that name. The records had been sealed, destroyed! As far as the world was concerned she really never existed at all.

I kicked my door open and the knob buried itself in a hole in the drywall that had been getting deeper for years. It wasn't the first time I'd kicked the door open and I knew it wouldn't be the last. There were phone calls I should probably have made but instead I fell onto my bed and passed out.

December 31, 2015

Nothing could stop me, not ever again. Momma was with me and though these men might stand in my way, they wouldn't stand for long. Every bullet and cannon shell and missile that hit me just strengthened my resolve and I kept swinging.

A pair of rocket VTOL craft hovered off to my left and started to fire and with a single flick of the wrist my AT field deployed and stopped every shot in its tracks, but I didn't stop there. I pushed on it, harder and harder and started to walk towards them with the field as strong as it had ever been before.

The soldiers on the ground and in their tanks and trucks were flattened as I pushed forward, a great shield, or maybe a _plow_ of light and energy stripped them from the Earth because I _would not lose_. I'd never lose again!

The aircraft tried to escape me but with a scream I lunged towards them and smashed them into oblivion between my AT field and the geofront wall. More kept coming, they would keep doing it until they were all dead, so I would kill them.

I switched on my external speakers and roared out at the array of tanks that was rolling towards me in their futile effort to stop me. "Stop holding back! I'll take you all on! Every single one of you at once!"

They took my challenge because they had to, because their pride and their fear demanded it, but so did mine. They fired their cannons and I kicked their tanks into the sky and they fired their missiles and I swatted their aircraft into the ground.

Men on foot tried to climb my legs and I stomped them flat. Nothing they could do could even slow me down. It was a futile effort to even try, to even _think_ about trying.

Overhead, nine winged forms circled and I knew what they were, and I knew we'd fight. "The Eva series?"

There was a tense moment as they circled, descending slowly towards the field of battle. I sat in my entry plug, slowly breathing in the LCL. The Evas folded their wings in and dropped towards the ground.

I ran to meet them.

January 2, 2032

The train car was a private one, along with the rest of the train. It was a luxury extravagance that I'd been used to before, but it held no sway over me and hardly made up for the implicit threat that had gotten me here in the first place.

"Asuka, I'm glad you could make it. We're really excited to film this documentary and having the Hero of Tokyo-3 with us for this occasion is really going to make this something for the history books," Carolina gushed at me. The audacity of this woman was mindblowing. If she was a day over twenty I'd be surprised and yet she had guile of... a few other people I'd known.

She'd found what she'd found, which meant she had connections deep enough to scare me, and that was probably how she'd managed to put this whole thing together in the first place.

"I guess I can do anything if there's a gun to my head. Do I need to actually do anything for this documentary or is just having me in frame going to be good enough?" I muttered out while I sipped on the overpriced sparkling water they'd seen fit to stock the suite with.

"Well," She started with a smile that made me want to choke her _again_ , "You lived there during the war, we're hoping you can serve as our guide as we explore the ruins. Show us the sights, that kind of thing."

I rolled my eyes and took another long drag off the bottle, wishing instead that it was a cigarette and that there was bottle of something flammable to drink in my other hand. "Carolina, you do realize they bombed the city into a crater right? There's a big hole in the ground, there's nothing for me to guide you through."

"You could guide us through the battle itself, show us where and how everything happened. It'll go with what our other guide can tell us about what happened in the base itself during that final battle." She continued, ignoring my objection completely. She probably did that to people a lot. I never had any respect for that kind of thing, at least when it happened to _me_.

"What other guide? Did you get Ibuki? Aoba?"

"Shinji Ikari."

I smashed the bottle flat in my hand and sprayed the water all over the front of my shirt. She'd found _him?_ And he'd agreed to it? Of course he would, with _that_ threat over his head. I wasn't ready to see him again. I was never ready to see him again any of the times that I _did_ see him. "We don't do well together. You shouldn't have brought him."

"He said the same thing. I don't suppose you could shed light on why that is?" She asked me with that damn smile again. I couldn't tell if she was actively malicious or clueless as to what was really going on.

But I had to calm myself.

"It's very personal and I don't want to get into it." I answered as calmly as I was able, even though my fingernails were poking holes in what was left of the water bottle. It was rare that someone could make my piss boil so completely and so quickly, but she seemed to know exactly which buttons to push.

"Fair enough, I suppose we can come around to that part of the production later. For now, try to... enjoy the trip. We'll be at the airport by late afternoon tomorrow and we'll be in Tokyo-3 by the day after that. If you need anything, just call for an attendant."

Call for an attendant, what a joke. I found my way towards a dining car with an open bar. I wasn't going to ask for a drink when I could take them from the source _and_ get refills. The bar tender was an older guy who reminded me a bit of Andreas. I wondered if maybe they had a warehouse full of these guys.

They didn't have my cheap Japanese beer, but they did have gin, and sometimes gin was enough. Gin and tonic. Gin and vermouth. Gin and Gin. I was three highballs deep when the stool next to mine squeaked and someone sat down.

I didn't need to look to know who it was. "Hi Asuka."

I felt my heart skip a beat and I took a long drag off my fourth glass before I could bear to turn and face him. If I was going to survive this trip I was going to need to drink until I couldn't feel feelings anymore.

I swallowed hard and turned just enough to catch him in the corner of my eye. "Hi Shinji. It's been a while."

He hesitated, in so many ways still the little boy, long after I'd made him a man. But in so many other ways, he wasn't just that little boy. "I've missed you."

This was how it always started, every time. This is why I tried to avoid him, because I felt what only he could say. "Well, we're both here now, so I guess you don't have to. You want a drink? I'll buy," I offered.

He slid his chair stool closer to mine and I took the invitation to lean against him. His arm went around my shoulders and I didn't stop him. He never needed to ask my permission to hold me. He was the one who always wanted to leave and I was always the one who wanted him to come back.

I would take what I could get.

"Yeah, I think I'll have a drink too, Asuka."

And so he joined me on my gin journey. His five to my nine, and he was still feeling it more than I was, but I had a lot more practice. By the end of the night we'd ended up in the same suite and I wondered if Carolina had planned for that to happen, since she seemed to know everything else private about us.

But I stopped worrying about that almost just as quickly as I'd started. I had far more pressing distractions to take care of before we arrived at the airport, and they would require my full and undivided attention.


	2. All Lost Souls

Attestation II:

All Lost Souls

August 17, 2020

"If you're that concerned about her and if you care that little about how _I_ feel then why don't you just go fuck Rei and the three of you can be a happy _fucking_ family without me!" I screamed at him as I threw the phone at him. It wasn't our first fight but it felt like it might be our last.

The handset hit him in the head and bounced off into the wall, he took a step towards me and shook his head. "You know it's not that simple! I can't know how you feel if you'll never tell me!"

"And you'd really give a shit, would you?" I yelled back and shoved him away from me again. "You're just like your father, you don't care what other people feel, you're just in this for what _you_ want, aren't you?"

Too far, I'd gone too far and I knew it before I said it. I knew I'd pushed too hard, pulled at the wrong thread, and now it would all unravel. His hand was around my throat and squeezing, my back was against the wall before I even saw him move. I could see the hate on his face but I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes.

But I'd seen the snarl before, when there was an Angel to kill. I'd made myself into his enemy in my anger and he'd probably kill me the same as he had killed _him_. Just keep squeezing until it was all over.

I reached up and touched his cheek as the edges of my vision started blacking out and his grip relaxed. He threw me down to the floor and by the time I caught my breath the door had already slammed shut behind him.

Alone, again, just like I deserved.

January 4, 2032

I was surprised by how much of the city was still standing. I hadn't seen the surface since I'd last been inside Unit-02 and I'd just assumed that the bomb that opened the city up had destroyed it all. Instead, multi-story buildings along the rim of the blast zone were still, somehow, intact. No signs of life, but who wanted to live so close to what I'd done?

The helicopter that carried us over the rim shook as it descended into the geofront itself. The pyramid still stood, but not like it had once been. Time had finished the job that the battle had started and the rust colored wreckage was testament to that.

The hole in the side of the building was a painful reminder of what had gone down that day, but not as painful as the pools of blood and flesh that still persisted sixteen years later. Fractured plates of white armor with parts of what had once worn it still attached. Nobody could say I hadn't been thorough about it.

The weapons they'd brought with them were still scattered around the battlefield, some stuck in the ground, some stuck into chests. The tanks and planes littered the landscape, but the true story of how they got that way was lost to spin and political posturing. I was the hero, not the villain, after all.

Carolina poked me in the arm and pointed down at one of the more intact mass production units, the core was torn out and shattered on the ground next to it. "What can you tell us about what happened here?"

I didn't like to talk about it in front of Shinji. He didn't like hearing about it, didn't like _thinking_ about it. But, Carolina had us both at her mercy.

I looked to Shinji and he nodded his permission to me. If he was willing to tolerate it, I could go over it, once again.

"Well..."

December 31, 2015

The first one hit the ground in front of me and I didn't slow down. A tap on the control stick ejected the knife from my shoulder pylon and I caught it out of the air. That big toothy smile on the white Evangelion's face wouldn't be there for long.

I jumped into the air at the last second and spun around, knife out and under me to catch it in the top of the head. The blade bit into the rubbery flesh and split the beast from upper lip all the way down to the entry plug socket.

I let go of the handle and turned around once I'd put my feet back on the ground. Blood was pouring from the wound, but I wanted my knife back. I snatched the handle and jerked it down through the entry plug and out through the lower right quadrant of the Evangelion. If it had a liver, I'd have cut it in half.

What was left of the entry plug slid out of the shattered plug socket and hit the ground on fire. Pilots or Dummy plugs, I didn't know and I didn't care. They were no friends of mine. I stomped the red cylinder and grabbed the disabled Eva and held it over my head before throwing it at the second unit to hit the ground.

It tried to catch it's fallen brother but that only took it off balance. I snatched the heavy blade it had dropped and rushed number two, swinging the heavy blade in a mighty arc. There was no reason to hold back any longer; I would show them _everything_ I was capable of.

January 4, 2032

The helicopter bounced as we hit an updraft and I fell out of my seat and into Shinji's lap. There were worse places to end up. Out the window I saw the hole I'd torn in the side of the pyramid. We were landing.

I turned to Carolina and narrowed my eyes at her. "Are you going inside?"

"Yes, we're all going inside. That's what this is all about. We're cataloging the _secrets_ of Nerv, isn't that exciting?" She gushed with a tone that made me want to throttle the bitch.

"Not particularly exciting, no." Shinji answered for me with a shake of his head.

"I guess you're entitled to your opinions, still, it should be informative for _everyone!"_ She cheered as the wheels on the helicopter touched down on the pavement in front of what was left of the main entrance.

I rolled my eyes as hard as I was capable of and pushed myself off of Shinji's lap. He helped me to the open door and I slid out onto my feet. I was a little shorter the last time I'd been at head quarters, but I'd been a lot higher off the ground.

The air was thick with the taste of LCL. I knew what it _really_ was, but I couldn't quite bring myself to think of it like that, not now. I took the first steps towards the door and Carolina and Shinji followed behind. A fourth person, a man with a camera, followed along behind us.

Someone had to be willing to lead the way and it was just as well that it was me. The walk up was a familiar one at least. If you ignored the pools of blood and chunks of gore. The sidewalks had held up better than I'd expected, both from time and from the battle itself.

It didn't take long to reach the gate, which had been forced open sixteen years ago. The hallways were lit up by a handful of still-working light bulbs and emergency lighting. Somehow there was still at least _some_ power even after so many years.

The blood spatters and pockmarks from stray bullets still riddled the hallways but the bodies were gone, just shell casings and stains remained.

Carolina had mercifully _shut the fuck up_ during the journey to the first T junction in the hallway. "We'll turn right here to get to central dogma." I announced simply as I started around the corner.

"The sign says that central dogma is to the left." The cameraman answered with confusion in his voice. He could read Japanese after all.

"Used to be," I replied, "but I tore that hallway out with Unit Two when I came down to rescue the command crew. This is the long way around."

Carolina interrupted me next, "Wait, what?"

I sighed and turned around, "Where do you think that big hole in the side of the pyramid came from? What is it that you think happened down here? You think nine 'rogue' Evangelions came down here and sprayed the hallways down in gunfire?"

" _Asuka!_ " Shinji yelled at me in a warning tone.

I shook my head. "It doesn't matter, Carolina. Just follow me and I'll get us to the command deck."

She ran up ahead of me and turned around to face me with a grin, one I wanted to wipe off her face. "Oh really? What's there that's so important to you?"

I tried not to snarl at her and I managed to keep it to a simply frown. "You wanted me to guide you, didn't you? That's why you brought me, that's why you brought Shinji right? Well, the command deck is where I 'saved' the world."

December 31, 2015

I felt like I might die from the feedback of what had happened, but I'd still won. Nine down for the count, but Ibuki had been screaming for help. Lifts were out of the question, I came in through the wall. As powerful as I felt and as powerful as I was I could tear through the pyramid like a tin can and ride the central shaft into dogma in a minute or less.

Plenty of time to save Ibuki from the soldiers.

Would have been easier if Shinji was anywhere to be found, but it looked like _I_ was going to be the one playing hero, not him! I could just imagine the look on Misato's face when I was the one who saved everyone.

I did a flip into the main shaft and kicked off the opposite wall to burst through the bulkhead into the command deck. Shinji had pulled this trick during the fourteenth, and so while it wasn't my own original move, I planned to exceed his performance.

I came through the wall head first and arrested my forward motion with a punch into the rear wall and then a slap through the walkway below, both to crush the enemy soldiers already on it and to deny them a path to Ibuki and the rest of the surviving bridge crew.

Tracer fire started streaking towards my head to no effect. Tracers worked both ways, though, so it told me where the soldiers were and I just started punching out sections of walkway, chewing down the command tower as each blow knocked concrete out of the way.

The highest tier of the command tower was at eye level to Unit Two and I saw _him,_ the one who'd kept momma from me, who'd never told me about her and had taken her away from me, cast me aside. I could never forgive him and there was no way I'd let him get away with it.

I swung my left fist into that highest level of the command tower and took it completely apart, and with it I removed the Commander of Nerv from existence. I pulled back my blood stained hand and then took a step back. The soldiers had finally stopped firing. They were either all dead, or had lost the will to fight.

I turned to look down at the lower tier, where Ibuki and Aoba and Hyuga were still standing. They were not alone, with them, Shinji Ikari. His eyes seemed to stare into my soul, because he knew what I'd done. He'd seen it.

Ibuki's voice cracked, she was crying. _"Asuka... What did you do?"_

January 4, 2032

Standing on the command deck brought back all the memories I didn't want to relieve, and I knew for Shinji it was the same. He had that look in his eyes, that fear and hate that he couldn't let go of every time he was forced to remember.

I'd given him my virginity and taken his not even two days after I'd done what I'd done, and I thought that it might fix it, might make things better if I could pay him back with my body. That seemed to be the only thing I could offer him.

That seemed to be the only thing that made him stay for as long as he did, for the periods that he _did_ stay, but even that _gift_ was not forever. Eventually he'd look at me this way again and he'd leave again. As I deserved.

But as I thought back on the other night, and what we'd done after our drinks... I realized this was the fastest we'd ever reached the point where he wanted to leave again.

If I could just say it, even if I couldn't mean it, if I could just get the words out, maybe it would help him. Wouldn't fix him, wouldn't fix me or fix us, but maybe.

Carolina was busy moving debris and taking pictures of consoles, pictures of damage and pictures of blood stains, she wouldn't get in my way, nor would her camera man. I took the five steps it took me to reach Shinji.

His hand was clenching and relaxing, over and over. I imagined my neck within its grip. I put my hand on his arm and squeezed. He lifted his gaze from the floor and our eyes met. I could say it, I could mean it.

Not for what I'd done, but for what it had done to _him._ "I'm sorry."


	3. Syntax Incompatibility

Attestation III:

Syntax Incompatibility

January 1, 2022

"I haven't seen you in a while. I was beginning to think we weren't friends anymore."

The park bench was sitting under a tree but even that did little to quell the heat. Even in January, southern Japan was still hotter than blazes. I'd accepted the invitation to attend the victory celebration, against my better judgement, because _he_ might be there and-

"I did not know that we had ever been friends, Soryu. You've never said that we are, before."

I leaned back on the bench and turned towards Rei. She'd grown into a stunning woman, but she'd never been _bad_ looking, and maybe that was part of my jealousy, but anymore it wasn't like I had anything to compete with her about.

"There are two living people in the world that I trust, Rei. You're one of them. I would have thought it went without saying that we're friends."

She turned to stare at me in a way that used as little facial movement as possible to tell me exactly how stupid she thought that statement was. I should have known better and I would have if I'd been Shinji, but I hadn't given a damn about Rei until long after the first one I'd met had _died_.

I rolled my shoulders back and stared up at the tree, "I guess you're right. But I've said it now. You know they tried to get me to tell them where Unit-02 is again? As if digging that up is going to solve any of the world's problems."

"There are still potential threats that could require the deployment of Evangelion. You know this, don't you?" She asked me with that same expression. There was sadness in her voice, but it was hard to spot. I must have been spending too much time with her after all, if I was learning to speak Rei.

"That's why I didn't self destruct. Well... That's one reason." Mother...

"I see. As for our other arrangement, that which has been entrusted to me is still safe," Rei explained and put a hand on my shoulder. She must have picked that up from someone else, it didn't seem like a social gesture she'd normally have made. Or maybe she was still growing?

"You can talk to Shinji about that. Forgetting is the only way I get to sleep at night."

" _Do_ you sleep at night?"

"Sometimes."

January 5, 2032

The smell of machine oil and LCL was still faint on the air even after all the time that had passed. The cages were almost completely untouched, aside from the bakelite that seemed to cake half the surfaces in the cavernous chamber.

Once it was obvious that the Evangelions were either deployed or immobilized there was no reason to stick around, and so most of the fighting never made it down this far. That which had, hadn't lasted long.

It was... _different,_ seeing it from ground level. I'd had never had any reason to be down here and so looking up towards the gantries that I _had_ walked on made them look terrifyingly high. The one reserved for Unit-02 was empty. The one reserved for Unit-01 was not.

Locked in place and encased in bakelite up to the neck, it stood as silent defender to all that used to be, and all that had been lost. If we'd had warning, if Unit One could have deployed alongside me... well, I couldn't say it would have gone any different.

It might have been the less cruel fate that things ended the way they did instead of letting him climb aboard Evangelion one last time. In all the ways Evangelion gave me worth, Evangelion made him feel worthless and I understood why, far too late.

January 5, 2016

It had been two days since we'd done _that_ and he was still avoiding me, at least as much as he could. The one surviving Evangelion Air Carrier was spacious, but not so much that we didn't see each other, he just ran every time we did.

There'd been no time to wash the blood off of Unit-02. I'd broken us out of head quarters and we'd hijacked the carrier and ran like the devil himself was after us, and he probably was. Enough weapons and ammo to equip an army and enough rations to feed it.

But there hadn't been time to wash off the blood, and even days later, flying seemingly without and with nowhere to go, blood would still drip off of the armor. It was a bizarre thing to see, like a red fuel leak dripping behind us as we cut through the air.

She'd saved me when I couldn't save myself. She'd saved me but it felt like all of that blood was on me instead.

Three adults, three children. Others might have survived, but we were the only ones who made it out. Maya Ibuki, Shigeru Aoba, Makoto Hyuga, Asuka Soryu, Shinji Ikari, Rei Ayanmi. The six survivors of Nerv, on the run with an Evangelion in a nuclear powered airplane.

A motley crew were we.

Maya tapped me on the shoulder while I was staring out the window at Unit-02 for what felt like the hundredth hour in a row. "Asuka? We're getting a call over the radio. They say they know you, and they said they have a safe place for us to land."

I turned towards her with a confused look on my face. "Everyone's dead. Who could possibly have a safe place for us?"

"She said her name was Kirishima."

January 5, 2032

"So this is where they were made?" Carolina asked with that saccharine _wonder_ in her voice that drove me just so far out of my mind. Behind her, the stripped spinal columns of failed Evangelion units hung from armored skulls into a pool of LCL.

The electric cart we were riding on was still in working condition, having escaped the horrors of the invasion and having been left plugged in in a base that was somehow still powered. It was better when things still worked.

I shook my head, "no, these are failed attempts. This is a dumping ground. Nothing ever came of these."

I'd never been here before, but Shinji had. He'd spoken to me of it, now and then. In the times between our self imposed exiles from one another. He'd always had a far off look in his eyes when he'd spoken of it and I felt guilty for letting him continue, but I couldn't ever bring myself to stop him.

"We should turn back," Shinji said suddenly as we approached a half-open blast door at the end of the causeway. The LCL plant, at least according to the portions of the paint that hadn't faded.

I'd never been quite this deep into the facility. I'd never needed to be. I'd never wanted to be.

Shinji was shaking in his seat but Carolina either didn't notice or didn't care. "Continue on, we're getting good footage here." She commanded her assistant, who was driving.

I wanted to knock her on her ass but the implicit threat she'd made hung over my head and I bit my tongue and kept my hands in my pockets. This expedition deep into the base had only taken a token effort at anything else so far, so why was she so willing to push on _this_?

Shinji grabbed my hand and squeezed hard enough I thought my fingers might break. He knew what was behind that door and he was terrified. He'd held me like this only once before and-

I wouldn't be as heartless as I'd been then.

My hand squeezed onto his to let him know I was there, that he wasn't going to be alone. I looked up to meet his eyes and he shook his head at me. It was... different than I'd expected.

I started to wonder if it was himself that he was truly worried about.

The gap in the door ahead was wide enough for us to fit through and so Carolina's assistant didn't slow down as he took us through into the other room. The lights came on after we'd passed through and took a moment to warm up, and as the darkness was pushed back by the light, my body froze in place.

In the center of the absolutely gigantic chamber was a massive steel cross and nailed to it... We'd killed them all hadn't we? Was it all for nothing? The Angels were _not_ all gone and we didn't have anything to kill it with!

I'd have screamed if terror hadn't frozen me in place. This is what he never told me, what I'd never knew. If he'd told me about this I would have taken Unit-02 and come down here and-

"Oh my god!" Carolina screamed as the cart screeched to a stop. "There's still one left!? You've got to kill it! G-get your Eva and kill it!"

Yes I'd get-

She was screaming, but her body language felt off, and I wasn't the only one to notice it. Shinji was staring at her with confusion and mistrust on his face. This didn't feel right. She'd been completely calm when I was about to choke her to death and she turned directly into a scared little girl at the sight of an Angel that wasn't moving?

Sure, I'd been scared stiff but I knew what these monsters could do, she'd never seen it, she couldn't have been older than five or six when it had all happened. The way she'd been acting about the husks of the Evangelions on the surface was like it was all a game.

Her assistant hadn't made a sound, either. He was sitting calmly in the driver's seat, holding the wheel.

"I can't do that. I don't know where Unit-02 is." I lied to her.

"W-well, you know someone who knows where it is, right!? Right!?" She faux panicked at me.

This was all wrong. So very wrong. The power was on, the light bulbs were lit, the reveal was perfect, wasn't it? The whole base wasn't exactly cleaned up but there were no bodies, no guns. The whole place had been sealed after we'd left, nobody was allowed in here, even to recover bodies! There'd been protests and riots about it.

 _The power was on._

The cart worked flawlessly, it didn't even look all that old-

"I'm sorry, I can't." I told her as calmly as I could manage as I eased myself off the seat and onto the ground. I'd been too caught up in what it used to be like I didn't think of what I _should_ be. There were no tracks in the dust where we'd driven. There was no dust.

The door was cracked open just wide enough for us, and the assistant knew that. The blood stains were still everywhere but the lights worked and there was no _dirt_. The air wasn't stale, not down here.

Shinji's feet clicked onto the steel flooring next to me and Carolina's assistant started to move.

"Well, I had to give it a shot. We only really needed Shinji but if I could have had Unit-02 as well? That was worth the effort." Carolina had dropped the act, but she wasn't as clever as she thought she was, I'd figured it out before she'd given it away and that gave _me_ the element of surprise. I'd had assholes lying to me for years, I'd gotten adept at spotting bullshit, I'd only let my emotions cloud me this time.

I spun on my right heel and jammed my closed fist into the assistant's windpipe as hard as I could and felt the crack against my knuckles. He fell forward holding his throat and I kicked him over into Carolina's legs, knocking them both down.

Shinji grabbed me by the wrist and just about pulled me off my feet as he took off running _deeper_ into the chamber. He'd been here before, I followed after him as fast as my legs could carry me.

"It was a trap!?"

"She know which levers to pull, I should have been smarter." Shinji answered back as he lead me forward. "There's an elevator that leads directly to the commander's office. They probably don't know about it."

I shook my head at him, " _I_ should have been smarter. What the hell are they trying to do here?"

I heard the gunshots before I heard the bullets skip off the floor. A half meter to our side was a cutout in the rock wall of the chamber and Shinji dragged me into it. The elevator door was already open for us.

Shinji punched the button and the door slid closed on us, and then we started to ascend. "Nothing good."


	4. Selfish Intimacy

Attestation IV:

Selfish Intimacy

September 9, 2021

Anyone who cared to look would've known what we'd done. We were flagrant about it in the times that we'd done it but we'd only ever done it for each other. Time between the sheets to escape from the guilt that we'd still never admit was there, guilt for-

"I wonder." He said, laying next to me with his eyes locked on the ceiling tile of the apartment that we only sometimes managed to share. I imagined he'd be the one to leave after our next fight; I'd left last time.

"I try _not_ to wonder," I answered him with a laugh that didn't quite come from the heart. Skin to skin, laying against his side in our shared bed was one of the only times I really felt safe, but I would never admit it.

The things left unspoken between us had to simply be understood; what couldn't, or _wouldn't_ be conveyed in words had to be conveyed through other means. That thing we'd never done with anyone else could bridge the gulf that words didn't.

Or I could hope that was true and hope that he felt the same.

His arm tightened around me and he pulled me closer and I closed my eyes. "I wonder," he said again, "what it would have been like if she was still with us."

Misato.

My eyes hurt and my breath got caught up in my throat. I couldn't let him see this weakness, that wasn't who I was. I rolled away from him and out of bed to find a shirt. "That could never happen. There's no point in thinking about a past that can't be changed."

"But we _could_ talk about it." He protested. He hadn't bothered to come after me, but he rarely did. He'd learned it didn't work.

I pulled my hair back into a ponytail and tied it up. The dresser drawer was sticking, but the shirt could wait till after the fight if it had to. "It's not going to change anything, Shinji. It happened, it's over. Don't be stupid."

The sheets rustled behind me and I turned my head to see him getting up out of bed. It was going to be one of those fights. "If you just keep running away nothing will ever change, Asuka! Maybe we can't change the past but we can change what we do in the future!"

No, no we couldn't. I knew what he refused to accept and nothing was going to change that. But then, it was _his_ turn, wasn't it? "Shinji... Get out." 

January 5, 2032

It had been years since I'd held a gun but it wasn't the kind of thing you forgot. The skeleton that donated it was generous enough to provide spare magazines for it as well.

It seemed that he'd probably been killed when he was trying to go after the commander sixteen years ago, but didn't win the fight. He probably would have been discovered by Carolina's people if I hadn't destroyed the main access corridor to the office with Unit-02 back then.

Or maybe whoever she was with weren't smart enough to figure out where his office was in the first place. They might not have even thought there would be anything important in it.

With the original Magi right there in the command center they might have had everything they needed, or at least everything they thought they needed, without even looking for his office.

I didn't know how many men they had or what their plans were, but I did have a machine gun and a personal body count higher than anyone else on the planet. While that might not have been the kind of thing anyone would brag about in polite company, it was starting to shape up that the company I was going to be keeping was anything but polite.

It wasn't the first time but it was the first time on foot, maybe that would make a difference and maybe it wouldn't. In the end it didn't matter because just like sixteen years ago it was something that had to be done and it was probably for the same reasons.

I didn't know it back then, I didn't really know what was being planned when those nine came to fight. I didn't know why the JSSDF attacked and I didn't know that I'd really done something good when I'd taken Gendo Ikari off the board.

They'd only told me weeks later, once all the dust had settled and we'd come in from the cold. Third impact was what had been at stake. All those months fighting and killing and in the end we were going to do it to ourselves, join together in perpetual unity or some garbage like that.

I glanced over to see that Shinji was _not_ arming himself. That made sense, he never reveled I it like I had. Angels were one thing, but he never had it in him to enact violence against his fellow man, even when his life depended on it.

I would have to protect _him_ , and that I could do. The world thought I was a hero of war. Shinji had fought monsters but I'd fought _men_. I could do it again, for Shinji, and for Misato. So he wouldn't have to, and for her, so she-

"What's the plan? Get back to the surface?" Shinji asked me as he covered up the skeleton I'd looted. He had always been more caring and more respectful than I could ever bring myself to be, and that was why he was a better person.

I shrugged and toggled the safety on the assault rifle. "That's step one. Part of me wants to make sure they don't have anything _else_ up their sleeve. If they wanted us, they probably wanted Evangelion. Which means they _probably_ don't have the missing three."

"The mass production units that didn't come here? I hope they don't have them, but if they do..." Shinji asked, trailing off because he knew he didn't need to ask the question for me to understand him.

"Unit One could be an option. If we could get there... But once we get to the surface we can call Rei and that'll be the end of it."

"She doesn't want to be part of _that_ anymore. She's got a life of her own now." Shinji protested, as if by reflex. He always seemed to have a special place in his heart for her. It didn't take a rocket scientist to know why.

"She'd still do it, for you if for no other reason. If it was bad enough _I_ would even climb back into Unit-02, but don't _tell_ anyone that."

He actually laughed and shook his head at me, "That's not the secret you think it is."

I shot a glare at him and then shrugged, "Alright, fine. Give me the chance and I'll wipe them _all_ off the board. But we've got to get the hell out of here first."

"I've actually got an idea about that, but it means we're gonna have to hope Misato was paying attention sixteen years ago." 

Nobody would have expected us to go deeper into the complex instead of fighting our way to the surface and I was pretty sure that was the only thing keeping us alive. With the bulk of enemy forces trying to keep us inside they'd necessarily have to be concentrated around the perimeter, not the interior corridors and junctions.

It meant that my assault rifle got to stay cold and it meant Shinji didn't have to watch me kill anyone. I'd been in more fights after Evangelion than he'd been and he didn't know about most of them. That was the gift I'd been able to give him.

The bizarre familiarity of the hallways we'd once walked every day was striking. Mold and dried blood and chipped concrete and chips of hardened bakelite littered the dark hallways and it was only the dim light of old glow-sticks I'd taken from a skeleton that let us see our way through.

"Just like old times, right Shinji?"

His footsteps hesitated for a moment. "What?"

His voice sounded confused, maybe a little hurt. Did my comment miss the mark?

"Moving through headquarters in the dark? Last time we had Rei to show us where to go. Have to do it ourselves this time." I clarified and then started walking again.

It wouldn't be too long before we found some way to fight again so I couldn't risk stopping for long enough to give us that opportunity. We could hate each other after this, just like we always did.

The corridor curved to the side slightly, more than it had in my memory. I shouldn't have been surprised, given the violence that had happened on that day some displacement of the earth should have been expected. It did tell me that we were outside of the honeycomb structure of headquarters and into one of the service access sections; nothing but dirt and rock on all four sides of the tunnel.

It would be a straight shot with no side-access until we reached-

A faint click of plastic against metal echoed from behind me and I spun and dropped to my knee. Shinji hadn't reacted yet, but this was never his realm. My safety was off and the rifle was rising up to my shoulder by the time the first round headed our way.

I squeezed down on the trigger and let a three round burst towards the muzzle flash of our attacker's gun. In the dark I couldn't see the hit but I heard the pained grunt and the sound of a body hitting the floor.

"Shinji, run for the end of the-"

Another muzzle flash knocked the words right out of my mouth and I slapped the trigger down to empty another two bursts into the source of the muzzle flash. I tasted salt and copper and dropped the rifle. My shirt was sticky and hot on my right side and I couldn't take a breath.

He'd got me, right through the lung it felt like. I didn't have long, a few seconds at most before I was incapacitated. I fell to my back and saw Shinji looking down at me in concern. Footsteps that weren't his approached from the same direction as the gunfire had.

More bullets came flying past even as my hearing faded. He knelt down next to me and grabbed the rifle I'd dropped and his expression changed from concern to anger.

No, not anger. _Rage_.

September 20, 2015

Pyrrhic victory was not what I had in mind when I'd started, but even that was preferable to losing, if only by a hairsbreadth. The failure of the final cable had sealed my fate and I was in no position to swim to the surface, especially not in liquid hot magma.

At this depth there was no way that the entry plug would survive to the surface, but even that might be a quicker end than waiting to boil at the bottom of a volcano. "I guess this is the end for me."

It was no longer a matter of trying to save myself, but rather making a choice about how quickly I wanted it to be over. I could shut down and wait, try ejecting, I could jettison the D-type equipment and let nature run its course.

A sudden jolt pushed me down into the seat and I looked up. Visual sensors wouldn't have worked inside magma, but the complex sensor array that Evangelion used showed me a picture just the same. Unit One and that idiot Shinji.

Maybe I wasn't going to die after all.

"Shinji... You fool."


	5. Return Again

Attestation V:

Return Again

January 5, 2032

I woke slowly to a gentle rumbling sensation that wouldn't have been unpleasant if not for the shooting pain in my right side. I'd been shot, that much I remembered. I hadn't expected to wake up again and I was okay with that.

A sharp jolt elicited a gasp and my eyes snapped open at once. A familiar ceiling greeted me; the roof of Katsuragi's car. Shinji had gotten us to where we needed to be. The weight on my chest was unexpected but the full-body pressure was something I was familiar with, even if it had been a while since I'd felt it.

I finally looked down to see that I was wearing a blood-stained flak jacket and a bright red plug suit. I must have been close enough to the size I was back then that it still fit, or maybe a new one had been extruded for me.

"Shinji?" I croaked out as I turned my head to the right. The assault rifle was wedged between the seat and the door and Shinji was staring forward with rage on his face, an expression that broke when he heard my voice.

"I wasn't sure you were going to wake up. You almost suffocated before I got you into a plugsuit to seal up that chest wound." His words came out a mile a minute. He was running on adrenaline and it had him scattered, wired, running a thousand miles an hour.

He was wearing a chest rig covered in magazine pouches and blood and I knew he'd become like me, because of me: a killer of men. I knew that once he had time to calm down it would kill him inside. I only hoped he could keep angry long enough for us to get out of here.

I realized after looking outside for a few seconds that we weren't heading towards the surface access route. The numbers were counting down, that was taking us deeper, towards the cages. This had to be the maintenance access tunnel.

"We're not heading for the surface, Shinji." I commented with as much of an edge as I could manage in my voice. Having a single functional lung didn't make that easy. At least I didn't cough up any blood.

He shook his head, "They figured out what we were trying to do. I took care of them but they blew the exit tunnel. Got some ammo and gear out of it. I came up with a new plan while you were unconscious."

"Jumping into a volcano again?" I asked with a hint of a smirk. His plans tended towards the self destructive, but then I was no better.

"Yeah, something like that. I'm going to try to take Unit One. It's the only way I can think of to save you." He answered with that same even tone. Maybe he wasn't as fried as I thought; he was _focused_. Determined.

"You don't have to _save_ me, Shinji."

"No, I do. For Misato's sake if nothing else. And it doesn't matter if I have to, I'm _going_ to."

I felt a twinge in my gut and looked away from him. "Don't bring her up-"

"No, Asuka. I'm done listening to you. When this is over I'm going to her. Hiding her is a moot point. She'll be safer if she's with _us_ but I'll do it by myself if you make me."

I closed my eyes and clenched my fist. He picked a fine time to grow a spine. He'd been using her as a weapon for years but he'd never gone as far as to say he'd leave me behind. "Fine, if we live through this I'll do it. She's my daughter too, after all."

September 25, 2016

In the same instant that I felt a kind of love I never expected I'd ever experience, I knew that it wasn't mine to keep. Nine months after what should have by all rights been the end of the world and I was holding something that I could never have imagined would have been part of _mine._

A life. A tiny, fragile, human life. She was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen and she was mine, but not to keep. I had rationalized it, bargained over it. I'd tried to find a way forward that let me be there and let her stay and there was no way out, no way around it.

She'd never be safe if she was with me, and I knew it. Shinji didn't have to agree with me and I knew he wouldn't, but that didn't change that he _knew_ too. I was going to take his daughter away from him and it was going to break him almost as much it was going to break me.

But I'd been broken before.

"We-" I started, or tried to, around the lump in my throat. "We'll call her Misato."

She'd died saving Shinji, or that's what I'd heard. I couldn't bring her back. I couldn't even give him the daughter he created, that he deserved.

But I could give him this.

January 5, 2032

Blood loss was a hell of a thing, and even under control I still didn't quite feel myself, but I was getting there. I could stand on my own two feet and I had Katsuragi's spare pistol clutched in a death grip while Shinji cranked the wheel on the ventilation access hatch.

We were both way too exposed but I was too wounded to handle an assault rifle, the pistol would have to do. He was going to get himself killed trying to play secret agent in the ventilation shafts but it was the only chance he had to get to his Evangelion and that was the only chance either of us had.

As much as I hated to admit it, he hadn't been wrong.

The hatch opened with a loud metallic snap that echoed through the tunnel and almost certainly ruined the quiet approach the electric car had granted us. I clenched my hand around the grip of the pistol and hissed at the pain in my side.

"Well that does it. Shinji, hurry up and get to Unit One. I'll stay behind and keep them from following you." Stupid Asuka. Stupid.

"You're too hurt. We'll have to come up with another plan-"

I shook my head and pointed to the hatch, "Go! I'm not dead yet and I'm not about to let them finish me off, just get out of here now and you can rescue me later, alright?"

That look he gave me, like he was never going to see me alive again, cut deep. He hesitated, like he always did. He gave in, like he always did. "Alright then. Don't think you can get out of our deal."

The hint of a smile, that was better. He didn't do that enough.

After he was through the entrance to the shaft I shoved the hatch closed over it and turned the wheel. Easier said than done with a chest wound, but in the end I got it done. Knees weak, I needed to sit down.

But not yet.

I shambled over to the driver's door of the car and dropped myself down into the seat, spun the key, and watched the gauges go through their power on self test. The car really had been through hell and the years of neglect hadn't been kind to it. Down to about sixty percent battery and we'd hardly used it, and I wasn't going to be kind to what was left.

I punched down the accelerator and the car lurched ahead aggressively, but more importantly, it was _loud_. The screeching of tires was sure to draw the attention of everyone with two ears and a machine gun, which was what I wanted.

They didn't know I was alone, so they wouldn't look for him if they were chasing me.

Poorly lit and faded signs flashed past the windows as the speedometer crept up to one hundred fifty. I had to keep my speed up to deny anyone a clean shot at my head. Not that it would help much if they got lucky, but it made _me_ feel better.

The more I focused on driving the car the less I focused on the bullet hole that went right through me. Without the plugsuit I'd have died from pneumothorax but with it that just shifted the balance in favor of pleural effusion. The latter gave me more time to live without proper treatment, so I'd take it.

Rifle rounds cracked past the windows and I stomped hard into the brake pedal and spun the wheel to the left. The car went into a skidding turn, swinging the headlights around aggressively back towards the way I came from. Back into the accelerator and the force of acceleration pushed me back against the seat with another squealing of the tires. I had their attention.

The speedometer crept back up over one hundred fifty and the battery level dropped under forty percent. I had enough to make it back to the parking garage but with the exit tunnel collapsed there wasn't much I could do after that. I just had to hope it bought Shinji enough time to get himself where he needed to be.

After I rounded the bend in the tunnel I passed the hatch he'd taken and saw that it was still closed, they hadn't spotted him. In a way it was lucky that the facility was in such disrepair. If the surveillance was still working they'd have been able to spot us almost immediately and we wouldn't even have gotten _this_ far.

Up to one hundred sixty and the car started to struggle to keep up. The battery meter was falling almost fast enough to watch in real time. It wasn't the fastest the car had ever gone but it was faster than it wanted to go after sleeping for so long.

"Come on, Katsuragi did worse to you. Give me just a little more..."

The road was blocked ahead, three men and two cars. There was no time to evade, so I turned the wheel to aim between the cars. I could fit, if there hadn't been a man standing there. I don't know if he expected me to stop, but I'd already been shot once and it was clear they weren't in the mood for prisoners.

The hood buckled on impact and the steering shook, but held. Speed started bleeding off rapidly, but I had a lot to spare and I made it up the final rise in the tunnel to reach the garage and to see the collapsed exit tunnel.

I turned the whee and stepped hard into the brakes to swing the car around a pillar and behind a row of abandoned cars that had been left when the facility had been abandoned years before. I had no hope of blending in but the more metal between me and their guns the better.

The dashboard went dark and I shoved the door open. It'd lasted long enough, _just_ long enough. Part of me wanted to, if I ever had the chance, take this car home with me and have it repaired. It had survived untold years of Misato and still had enough left for me this one last time. It deserved... something.

Blood loss made me sentimental too, apparently.

I dropped the magazine out to check it, twelve rounds in the mag and one in the pipe. Hammer back, safety off. I slid the magazine back in until it clicked into place and crept up to the edge of a rusted old minivan in the adjacent parking spot.

Any bullets they shot would cut right through it, but that's what the flak jacket and pure dumb luck were for. Concealment isn't cover, that was a lesson I'd learned many times over, many years before.

I limped around the van and to the front of a small truck in the next spot, catching sight of the two remaining soldiers in the process. Standard security uniforms, no armor, and one MP5 each. They weren't very good at their job either, if they couldn't spot a wounded girl in a bright red body suit, but I was willing to tolerate that particular failing.

The pistol felt heavy in my hands as I raised it to fire. I would only have one chance to get them both before they returned fire. If they did that, I was _done._

A loud creaking sound accompanied by a flash of bright light flooding into the garage distracted both of the men, who looked straight up to investigate. The sudden light illuminated them perfectly and I squeezed the trigger. One, two, three, four, five, six. Switch targets, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen. The slide locked back and both men dropped.

I lowered the pistol and leaned against the hood of the truck and finally took a glance upwards.

The roof of the garage was gone, in its place was something I hadn't seen in well over a decade.

"I guess you could use a hand, huh?" The voice asked me from speakers set into the head of a giant robot. There was a smugness to the words but then we'd never been the _best_ of friends either.

"Jet Alone 2, just for me? Kirishima, you shouldn't have."


	6. Rise Again

Attestation VI:

Rise Again

January 5, 2032

"We're not here for you, but if you wanna give me credit for the rescue I'm not gonna complain. We've got some pretty big fish to fry." Mana had _that_ smirk on her face, I'd seen it before and it never ended _well._ That went double when she had a giant robot.

"If you knew these people were into shady shit you could have given us a heads-up before we went _with_ them, Kirishma!" I hissed into her ear as I held onto her control seat.

She was strapped in, I got to hang on. That was definitely safe. At least Evangelion had LCL to soften impact forces. An open air cockpit in a nuclear powered tin can was definitely not better than an entry plug and I'd fight anyone who said different.

"You've got it wrong Asuka." She said _casually_. I hated that tone when she used it. She had a way of making it sound even worse than it usually did. "All we're here for are the AT-fields that set off _all_ of our alarms."

"You could have lead with that!" I snapped as the robot started to advance. "All _I_ know is that some woman named Carolina knows way too much and tried to have me killed."

The battlefield that used to be Nerv headquarters was still more or less as I had remembered it from the last time I'd seen it from this perspective. The buildings were still destroyed and the landscape scorched and craters from missiles and bombs and-

She'd had to have done it as soon as we went underground. Keep it the way I remembered it for the flight in, then pick up all the pieces while we were inside. If she had everything staged up already, she could do it.

With S2 engines it wouldn't have taken long. Even if I took out the cores it wasn't like they couldn't make new ones. The S2 engines were what mattered, and I didn't even know where those _were._ "We need to get out of here _right now_."

The ground shook under us and I could feel it even through the hundreds of insulating tons of steel of the Jet Alone 2. Steel shutters set into the ground that hadn't moved in over a decade slid back into their frames and out from them rose Evangelion deployment rails.

Five launch platforms, five white harpies rose into the daylight. They looked the worse for wear, obviously cobbled back together in a hurry, but they didn't look _wounded_. Cosmetic imperfections were numerous with missing and mismatched armor plating and scuffed paint.

But what made the dangerous was on the inside and the S2 engine would ensure it was _fully_ operational.

"Well, five _is_ better than nine. Guess that means it's hammer time." Mana chirped as the deck jolted under us.

Out of the right side windows I saw the right arm holding a gigantic sledgehammer. I would have picked something a little _sharper_ but if she wanted to brawl I couldn't fault it. We were still going to lose and I was still going to die, but at least she was gonna try.

Even one on one Jet Alone 2 was not a peer adversary to an Evangelion and she had to know that.

Or maybe she didn't; the robot lurched forward into a sprint towards the mass production unit directly in front of us. The deck bucked like an angry horse and it was all I could do to hang onto the nylon webbing to keep myself upright as we charged into our own demise.

The wind up was almost comically telegraphed, but there wasn't anything to be done for it. Mana had a certain style and this was most definitely _it_. A wild overhand swing with the right arm sent the hammer careening towards the Evangelion's toothy grin before it was intercepted by a white hand and held back just before impact.

Decking shook under me with the force of the blow and there was a loud clang that echoed as Mana delivered a shock punch with the machine's left hand into the abdomen of the white Eva. The arc discharge flash blinded me for a second and sent our enemy to the ground, even if I lacked the confidence to say it would _stay_ there.

We wouldn't have the chance to kill it, the others wouldn't give us that opportunity. I clenched my fist into the nylon webbing. I'd have to do it again, I couldn't wait for Shinji. "I need Unit Two."

"I need a big gun. Just hang on till the cavalry gets here!" She yelled over the sound of rending metal and flesh as she threw the Jet Alone into a rocket-assisted spin to back-stroke the hammer into another of the Evas that tried to jump us from behind.

Either she practiced a lot or she was a natural. After the Shinden incident I tended to believe the latter. That we weren't dead yet was a testament to either her luck or her skill and I definitely wanted it to be the latter rather than the former.

The blow that came next knocked me off my feet and had me hanging from my arm. The creaking of the steel around me revealed its source once I was able to shake the disorientation out and get my eyes to focus.

Staring into the mouth of an Evangelion while its tongue slobbered over the cockpit glass wasn't the most frightening thing I'd ever experienced; it was a very close second to the sound of teeth trying to penetrate the steel protecting me from being eaten.

Mana was working the controls, trying to free us but as the creaking got louder I started to lose faith that she'd figure it out in time. The screaming of alarms and the popping of rivets started to get louder and louder.

Until they didn't.

Daylight started to creep in around the edges as the mouth and the tongue pulled further away from the cockpit windows. Two mighty red hands gripped at the upper and lower jaws and were prying the beast away from us. Mana took the opportunity to pull us away and get a little distance while the bright red hands of Evangelion Unit Two tore the head of the mass production model in half in a shower of teeth and blood.

The piloting was basic, clumsy. There was no art to it, just brute force. There were only three people on the planet who should have been able to pilot that Evangelion and I was one of them. The other was still underground and Rei Ayanami had more art and grace than I witnessed.

The implications of such brute and untactical piloting were deeply unsettling, but given that they'd just saved my life I couldn't complain too much. I'd have to save _that_ for later.

"Mana, who's piloting Unit Two?"

"I think you'll be happier if I don't tell you."

I arrived at the only possible conclusion and it made my blood boil. I cracked the bones in my fist clenching onto the nylon webbing and I pointed my finger past Mana's head towards the crouched and defensive form of Unit Two. "Get me into that entry plug or you won't have to worry about the _enemy_ killing you."

October 2, 2016

"You have my word that I will keep her safe from harm."

It was the closest I'd ever seen Rei to crying. I didn't like her. I had never liked her. And now, at what was sure to be the worst day of my life, she was there for me. She was there for Shinji, but she was there for me too.

I had been wrong about a lot of things, her most of all. I didn't think we'd ever be friends, but she'd earned my trust, my respect.

Shinji couldn't stand to be there for it. Rei was sad enough on his behalf, because she knew what this would do to him. She must have surely known what it was doing to me as I handed her the swaddled week-old Misato Ikari-Soryu.

"After the way I've treated you, Rei, I would expect you to rub this in a little more." I whispered around the lump in my throat. I didn't need to be any louder than that, nor did I think I could have if I tried, not without breaking down. But she heard me.

"The past is over and I would not enjoy reveling in your pain. I will instead protect your future until you come to reclaim it." She had a way of speaking, when she did speak, that always got to me. Usually it angered me but this time...

"If she's going to be safe, I don't think I ever can. You keep her safe for me. You'll call her Ayanami and keep her as your own. Shinji... Shinji always said, you'll be a great mother."

January 5, 2032

I could have fallen to my death and I didn't care. I could have always distanced myself, always told me it was for the best, always told myself I had no other choice and I had to stay away. Faced with watching her _fight_ in my Evangelion I knew I was wrong, I'd always been wrong.

I jumped from Jet Alone's hand before Mana had even finished extending it, caught the side of the entry plug and smashed my wounded chest against the side, but I didn't slow down and I didn't let myself feel it.

An over-ride code I'd memorized years before tapped out like it was just yesterday and the escape hatch opened inward and I fell into the plug. There was no time to waste either, I shoved the hatch back into place and fell down against the bottom of the plug as it withdrew back inside Unit Two.

Just as I remembered it, except for the girl in Rei's old plugsuit who I would have never recognized if not for the fact that she looked exactly _Rei,_ with her mother's eyes and her father's hair. I didn't know if she knew me or if she didn't. I didn't know anything about her at all.

And that had been my fault.

The red A-10 headset on top of her head gave away that it was my own and not her adoptive mother's. Once I was finally able to look away from the girl I snatched the headset off of her head and slipped it onto my own. "Misato, I-I'm gonna drive now."

She nodded and slid out of the seat. Meek like her father or just respectful like her adoptive mother? Of course she'd have been able to pilot Eva, I was her mother, and my mother was inside Eva. Did she know? Did either of them know? Could they feel it?

I felt the word form on my own lips, even if no sound escaped. I was home again.

Mama.

I let the sync take me, a deep dive into memory and past. One, two, three. I felt the warm embrace of absolute borderline and the unit reactivated at one hundred percent synchronization. Fully in tune, just like I'd been only one time before, just like I'd never do again.

The four minutes left on the clock would be the brightest burning of my entire life.

The control yokes slid forward and I broke the sound barrier inside of a second. My right fist connected with the core of the mass production unit that Mana had shock punched first, and went right through it. I twisted my aim upwards and wrapped my hand around the plug socket from within the Eva's chest cavity and smashed it flat.

Pivoting on my right heel, I spun and took the dead enemy along with me, swinging it like a club until I let go and sent it sailing into the headless Evangelion that was trying to get back to its feet-

"Look out!"

I jerked my head to the side and threw my arm out to catch a punch headed in from my left. I got too focused and Misato had to be the one to save me from my own target fixation. I twisted my grip and threw a hard right punch into the Eva's chest.

The enemy unit stumbled back, but I kept its hand.

I threw the severed appendage to the ground and shouldered in to tackle the stunned enemy unit. Down to one knee, I kicked off the ground and jammed the left shoulder pylon up against its chest and fired two cycles from the flechette launcher installed there.

Blood poured down my back and I felt the Eva go slack and power down on top of me.

A blow from the side knocked me out from under it and onto the ground looking up at the sky. The two units that hadn't been damaged yet were standing next to each other and bearing down on me. Teaming up wasn't what I'd expected. I didn't know if they were operated by dummy plug or human pilots, but I didn't really care either. They were dying either way.

Jet Alone came in from the right and shock-punched the nearer Evangelion in the head and stunned it long enough for me to climb back onto my feet and rejoin the festivities. Mana dropped her hammer and I picked it up and swung it like a home-run hitter directly into the chest of the unit she _hadn't_ attacked.

Blood and cracked armor were my reward and I wound up to deliver a second blow to see how much more I could get out of it. One, two, three hits. On the fourth I shifted my grip and swung for the fences against the side of its head and was gifted an explosion of blood and teeth and brains.

It may have been a different time, but it was the same place and it felt like it always had. It was visceral and violent and bloody and I knew without a doubt that I was going to win.

Until the ground opened up.


	7. Maternal Instinct

Attestation VII:

Maternal Instinct

I wasn't as fast as I once was, wasn't as on-game as I'd been years before. Time and trauma had seen to that. I'd pulled the yokes and jumped backwards off the unstable ground and landed in the parking structure that Mana had only minutes ago pulled me from.

Who would have thought that I'd end up in an Evangelion and fighting before Shinji?

I was on my feet again as quick as I could be, but the weight of the extra battery packs made the process more cumbersome than it otherwise would have been. By the time I was ready to fight again the ground had stopped shifting and another mass production model stood in front of me.

No, not a mass production model, nor was it standing. The Eva was floating over the chasm that had formed in the middle of the geofront, white wings spread but not flapping. Unarmored and white and _glowing_. It looked so much the same and still so much _different_ from what I'd seen before.

In its left hand was the neck of Unit One. Shinji.

I felt the pounding under me before I realized what I was doing. Instinct and desire overrode thought and I let them. He'd been the same way so many times before and it had worked for him. Now it would work for me.

The hammer was heavy in my hands, it would be heavier when it hit. The roaring in my ears was the sound of my own scream as the pounding got louder, the distance closed. A second set of hands closed around mine on the control yokes and I jumped.

A double handed overhead swing, straight down into the Eva's head with every ounce of force the three of us could muster. The handle bent, the hammer head cracked and the Eva was forced down to its knees.

I brought my own knee forward and smashed it against the masked face of the enemy Eva, once, twice, three times till it cracked. The hand holding Unit One by the throat relaxed and Shinji broke away from his captivity.

Step one was complete, killing it would be step-

The blast caught me by surprise, I felt like I was on fire and I couldn't feel the ground under me. Felt like falling, or flying. In the moments that it took me to shake off my confusion my motion was arrested by part of the upper geofront dome that hadn't been destroyed sixteen years ago.

I landed on my feet when I hit the ground and collapsed down to my knee. I'd taken more than a little damage, but I could still fight. Evangelion gave power to the mind that the body didn't have on its own and I had no shortage of will.

My fist slammed into the ground and I forced myself back up onto my feet despite the protests and alarms. I ejected the extra battery packs and squared up for the next attack. I was in the zone, in tune, I was not going to let blood loss catch up with me before this fight was done.

On the right, holding his distance, was Shinji in Unit One. Unlike me, he didn't have an endurance limit for this fight. That just meant I had to try all the harder to get done before him. I jammed the yokes against the locks and leaped forward, fist drawn back.

Unit One was approaching from the side with a knife. One of us would deliver the killing blow and the other would serve as a distraction and it was still unclear who would play which role, so I had to try my hardest. Just like every time before.

Three, Two, One. I stepped into the swing and delivered a haymaker directly at the Eva's core. Every ounce of strength we had into that one wild swing. The snap kick that blocked my swing came as a surprise, the movement was so fast I couldn't even see it.

This wasn't a dummy plug. This was a pilot. Dummy plugs weren't so clever or skilled.

But I was the best pilot who ever lived, so they wouldn't stop me from prevailing. I threw a left hook and waited for the counter before dropping down to my knee. The Eva swung high and I leaned forward and fired the flechette launchers embedded in my shoulder pylons. Three cycles each, till the reserve charges ran dry.

A clean kill, I was certain. It didn't matter who they were, if they didn't see the attack coming they couldn't avoid it. The pilot would be feeling it, if they were still alive.

"Look out!"

I looked up to see one of my flechettes clenched in the Eva's fist and descending towards my head. There would be no evasion, I had taken a knee to take the shot and that put me at a huge disadvantage. It had been a hail-mary play that hadn't paid off.

If I ejected at that moment, I might save both of us, but I'd surely lose my Evangelion. It'd been over a decade and I'd been fine without her, but once we were together again...

Shinji was too far away to save me this time, he'd taken more damage than I had. Enough that Unit One was _limping_ towards us. He'd get over it, but not soon enough. I reached for the ejection handle, sparing a final look upwards at the spike heading towards my head-

" _Get clear, I've got this!"_ I heard the scream through the radio _and_ through the external sensors. The downward stroke arrested and the enemy Eva bent backwards away from me with thick steel arms restraining it in a full nelson.

"Kirishima you can't beat it in that tin can!" I yelled as I started to backpedal away from the Eva, get some distance so I could get myself back into a fighting position instead of presenting myself for my own execution.

" _You're probably right, but I don't plan on fighting. Reactor containment will fail in five seconds. I'm punching out. See you on the other side, Soryu."_

"Don't act like we're gonna die!" I yelled a moment before the top of the Jet Alone's cockpit split and the escape pod rocketed up and away from the fight. I dropped down to my knee and anchored myself in place. AT field to maximum, right before everything turned white hot. The overpressure pushed me back, even my AT field wasn't fully prepared to deal with a blast like that.

As the light faded and my eyes started working again I could see that the Eva was definitely the worse for wear. The entire rear section of the armor and the plug socket were burned away. The pilot wouldn't have been able to survive, nothing of the entry plug was left.

The burning ache throughout my entire body told me I hadn't come through unscathed either. The red paint of my Eva had been scorched to a flat grey across the front and large sections of plating were missing entirely. To say nothing of the alarms blaring in the entry plug.

I relaxed back into the control seat and looked to my side, to Misato. To my daughter. I hadn't seen her since she was a baby. Rei'd offered to show me pictures but I'd always declined. I couldn't stand to grow attached because in the end all I had to offer her was to fuck her up worse than I was.

And she'd ended up in the entry plug anyway. Coming to save the day because of course she would. I'd have words with Rei, but at the end of the day I didn't really have a right to complain. I'd written myself out of her life, and even as fucked up as I was, I knew that also meant I didn't have a say.

"Do you know who I am?"

I shouldn't have asked the question. The words came out of me before I could stop myself. It was why I didn't want to see any pictures, only worse. We were together and everything I didn't want to happen became an inevitability.

"I've seen you on TV before." She answered evasively. I knew that tone, I'd used it so many times myself.

"I mean-"

"I do."

I looked away, the battery meter was down to one hundred thirty seconds. Shinji could handle the rest, the enemy was dead.

"I never wanted this for you. I wanted to keep this away from you and here you ended up all the same."

"She was going to do it instead, but it wouldn't move for Mom. It would only move for me."

I felt like I'd been slapped but I did my best to hide it. I knew who she meant, and it wasn't me. I shouldn't have cared as much, I'd done so much to keep my distance and yet...

The sensors suddenly screamed and a section of the view screen highlighted and enlarged. I recognized exactly what I saw even as I contemplated the impossibility of it. Floating out of the destroyed rear armor of the enemy Eva, a small human figure with AT field wings. One I recognized.

Carolina.

She couldn't have been an Angel, and yet here she was proving that she had to be. Another artificial one like Kaworu had been? It didn't matter, I didn't have the power left to do anything about it.

Off to the right, Unit One was more the worse for wear after the blast, he may not have received the warning that I had. He was on his way, there was nobody else to handle it.

Her mouth was moving, but I couldn't hear her or make out her words. Twenty seconds of power remained, I pushed the controls and tried to make it back to my feet. Maybe I could do _something_.

The sharp pain that tore through me put to bed thoughts of fighting. The blast had torn up the Eva and by extension myself through the feedback. In front of my Carolina raised her arm and her Eva started to stand, despite the damage it had taken.

Her AT field flashed into existence in front of me in time to stop Unit One's progressive knife from hitting her. Shinji must have thrown it, but for nothing it seemed. Fifteen seconds of power.

Carolina raised her hand towards me and I braced myself for the attack that I knew was coming. I would have ejected, saved us both, but lying flat on my back there was nowhere to go.

And then her arm was no longer pointed at me. Two women floated in the air in front of me and one of them had a full head of blue hair that was as vibrant as the first time I'd seen it, so many years ago. She had her hand around Carolina's neck.

Eight seconds of power left. I felt Misato grab my arm. She was shaking. I didn't imagine she knew any more than the nothing I did, but was afraid all the same. I had never expected this out of Rei, but then there was a lot about her that I didn't know.

Three seconds of power left. Carolina's arm snapped towards Rei, and her right hand went inside of Rei's chest.

"Mom!" Misato screamed and I _felt_ her agony. One second of power left. Zero. The entry plug went dark as the screens shut down and synchronization failed. The grip on my arm tightened.

She pushed me out of the seat and I didn't have the strength left to stop her. I expected a punch, a slap, something. Something to punish me for failing. But the punishment never came.

With a primal scream, the displays came back online.


	8. Calamity

Attestation VIII:

Calamity

I hadn't experienced anything like it before. Shinji had, and now I knew what he'd felt like then. I was Evangelion. Evangelion was I. Four eyes that were not my own showed me the world outside of the Evangelion, two more added to the two that were my own the view inside of the plug.

More than just Evangelion, we were _also_ Misato Ikari.

The part of me that remained distinct from the consensus was _afraid_. The part that was _in_ the consensus was enraged. Enraged because of what we'd seen, because of what had happened to Misato's mother. Asuka Soryu was bothered, but she could handle it.

Misato Ikari was everything her mother and father had ever been. She was Asuka Soryu's pride. She was Shinji Ikari's fury. She was Rei Ayanami's determination. It had never been a question that Unit Two would move, Misato _needed_ it to move, and so it did.

There was nothing in this world that she would not do for her mother.

Pain fell away as the meaningless detail that it was and we rose to our feet. Our fists were clenched, our AT field bathed the geofront in its glow. Carolina's surprise, Rei's scream. The glowing Evangelion rose between us like the intolerable abomination that it was.

Asuka Soryu felt Misato Ikari's heartache and her own fury grew. Consensus was reached: Carolina would die.

Our hands reached out to grasp the Evangelion by the head and the neck. It reached up to stop us, but we would not be denied. Where once we'd have been tossed like a rag doll, the strength of our resolve had become insurmountable.

The wet crunch of bones and flesh yielding to brute force was the answer to our action. We could feel the blood and viscera on our hands as the Eva's head fell to the ground and once again Carolina was before us.

"Give her back to us!" we screamed. Three voices, heard as one. Our fist crashed against Carolina's AT field, one, two, three times. Each blow stronger than the last, none of them quite breaking through.

"It's too late for that!" Carolina screamed back directly into our mind. "This is the forbidden union. This is my ascension. This is the fate of mankind, I won't be denied!"

We punched harder, faster, against the unyielding barrier even as the two descended towards the headless Evangelion. The flesh of the downed giant swirled and rose towards them. Nothing good would come of this, though we didn't know what form the tragedy might take.

The purple gauntlet of Unit One intercepted their descent, broke through their AT field in a way that we'd been unable to accomplish. Shinji Ikari, the hero, had saved us once again. Just like he had before. Just like at the volcano. Just like-

Unit One's left hand and forearm disappeared in a cloud of red mist and Carolina finally reached the downed Evangelion's flesh. The swirling flesh rose to meet her, and both she and Rei were taken into it. The Eva's form started to shift, departing the wasp waisted figure typical of an Evangelion and instead filling out with a more feminine figure. A more human figure.

The irresistible force if its AT field pushed us back and our feet dug into the earth to try to arrest our movement. This was more than an Evangelion, more than an Angel. We'd never seen anything like this before. We'd never felt such primal fear being forced into our hearts.

The being took on the form of Carolina as it grew higher and higher. Every punch we threw cracked the armor on our gauntlets, but we couldn't stop, we had to get her back. Misato needed this, and so Asuka needed her to have it.

Unit One's roar was a sound Asuka Soryu had head before. It was familiar and terrifying to her, but in this moment it was a comfort. With that sound always came victory. With that sound always came a _cost._

The left arm had regenerated and it held a weapon Asuka never thought she'd see again. The real thing, not just a replica: The Longinus Lance. Called down from the moon to answer the call of its master. Unit One leaped _through_ the AT field and ran the twin prongs of the lance through Carolina's chest and arrested her growth.

But he did not stop. Shinji forced her to the ground, to her back. Pinned her in place with the lance. Unit One's hand was outstretched towards her core, his AT field flashing into existence.

The sky turned red above us and the ground started to shake. Far above, a black sphere started to expand. This was wrong. This wasn't supposed to happen, this was a price we couldn't pay.

Misato Ikari had to save her mother. Asuka Soryu had to save Shinji Ikari. A consensus was reached.

We felt the performance limiters built into Unit Two disengage as we launched off of the ground hard enough to leave a crater behind us. We didn't know how we would do it, only that we had to do it. We would save them. It hadn't come this far to end like this. We couldn't accept that.

Carolina's core _compressed_ under Unit One's left hand. We drew closer, we reached out, we touched Unit One-

I stood in a field of white, not quite on the ground but not quite flying. Laying next to me were Misato and Rei, both looking like they were asleep. My pain was gone, my gunshot wound all but a memory. I no longer felt connected to Misato _or_ to Unit Two.

I was myself, and nothing more.

"If I'd been better, maybe _we_ could have been better. We could have been a family instead of ships passing in the night."

I spun to face Shinji, standing in front of me wearing his plug suit, looking just like he did back then. That was who he always was to me, no matter how far we came. I imagined I'd been the same for him. I felt the tears welling up, but this time I didn't try to fight or hide them.

"I could have been better too. Everything I was afraid of ended up coming true anyway. If I'd been less afraid... if I'd been less afraid we could have had those years together. We could have been amazing."

He grabbed me in a hug and squeezed me like it might be the last time. "Asuka, I've always thought you were amazing."

I tensed up in his embrace. It wasn't like him to act- "Don't act like this is the end, Stupid Shinji. We can still try again. Don't give up on me!"

He pulled away from me and shook his head. He was crying too. "I never gave up on you. I never gave up on _us._ If we had another chance, I know we could do it right."

He was saying _goodbye._ I shook my head, "Don't talk like that! I don't need you to save me! I don't need you to be the hero! Don't say goodbye to me!"

The tears were pouring down my face. I wanted to punch him, slap him, hold him. I couldn't just let him leave!

"I have to be the hero. If I don't, you will. You've always been stronger than me, Asuka. You can protect her and... and... I will always be beside you. Keep me in your heart."

I crashed into the ground and rolled through the mud before I caught myself and pushed myself back onto my feet. I was still synchronized to Unit Two, but I was the only one, this time. I was in the control seat. Rei Ayanami was in my lap. Misato was slumped over the front of the sled.

Through the view-screen, Unit One stood with its hand pressed against Carolina's core. An AT field formed in a cylinder around the two of them and my heart felt like it might stop. I knew I'd failed, because I couldn't save him.

Because he wanted to save me instead. There was nothing in the world that Shinji Ikari would not do for his family.

A pillar of light filled the AT field and rose into the sky, forming a white hot cross that reached out into space. I felt myself shaking uncontrollably as the light started to fade. I felt my heart break when the dust settled and there was nothing left where Unit One had once stood.

"S-stupid Shinji."

I felt like my chest was in a vice, felt the tears melting away into the LCL as fast as they could form. A great weight forced me down to my knees. There had always been a chance, there had always been possibility. One day, we might fix it. One day we might put the past behind us and live. Truly _live._

Instead I took the only path left to me, and we screamed.


	9. Hero of War

Attestation IX:

Hero of War

January 7, 2032

Seven days. One hundred sixty eight hours. Ten thousand and eighty minutes. I'd met Carolina just after midnight on the first of the year and seven days later Unit One was destroyed, my daughter was back in my life, and the only man I'd ever loved was dead.

So I found the bottom of a glass at The Usual Haunt and Andreas poured another, just as he always did. He left me to my sorrows, just like he always did. The same as it had been a week ago, I was alone. The difference was, I knew it was going to stay that way.

I'd fought my last battle and so had he. If I believed in a higher power I'd believe that one day I'd see him again. Even if I didn't believe, it might still happen. It would probably be Evangelion's fault either way.

I dropped the mug down on the bar top a little harder than I should have but not hard enough to break it. My wound was far from healed and I knew drinking wouldn't help that any, but it wasn't enough to stop me. I could have paid a shrink to talk me through my problems but malt therapy was still my go-to.

"Asuka, the television."

I looked up, Andreas was pointing over his shoulder at the TV behind the bar. Unit Two's face greeted me. Shiny red paint. Some special I was sure, hero week hadn't quite ended yet. The camera cut to a podium and-

Not a television special, I'd recognize that face anywhere.

"Turn it up." I said in a flat tone as I tried to take another drink from my empty mug.

" _-ame is Rei Ayanami. I was the designated pilot of Unit Zero during the Angel War. Two days ago Unit One and Unit Two engaged in combat here, in the ruins of Tokyo 3. The same group that orchestrated the attack sixteen years ago tried again, and Shinji Ikari died to stop the Third Impact."_

The scene changed to an aerial video of the battle. Unit Two destroying the mass production Evas, then Carolina's Eva rising from the ground. Unit Two getting blown back by an energy blast, Jet Alone self destructing.

The scene changed again, this time a still picture of Carolina and once again Rei's voice narrated.

" _Carolina Curtiss was working with a group with the stated goal of bringing about Third Impact for their own purposes. I am revealing myself to the world at this time for one reason: To let this group know that they will not go unopposed."_

Misato stepped up to the podium from the left side of the frame, wearing a bright red plugsuit, just like I used to wear. Her face had that same smug determination on it that I used to have. I couldn't help but feel a small measure of pride, even if this was the opposite of everything I'd ever wanted for her.

" _My name is Misato Ikari-Soryu. I'll let you all interpret what that means on your own. I am the current pilot of Evangelion Unit Two. We've taken over control of the Nerv base at Tokyo-3. Now that you know where to find us, know that we will be waiting."_

The broadcast cut and I felt every eye in the bar boring a hole through me. Andreas poured another pint into my glass without a word. The look in his eyes said everything that he didn't need to use words for.

My life was public enough that I didn't need to tell him anything for him to put together the pieces. He could have put together that I'd been with Shinji, that Misato must have been the product of that. Now he knew where I'd spent the last week.

My daughter was teamed up with the only person left on this Earth that knew what I'd been through, and they were going to take on the world while I got drunk in the bar I spent more time at than my own home.

The world thought _I_ was a hero, and seeing me fight again like that wouldn't change their mind. But the real hero, he'd died that day. I was nothing like he was. I would have done it for _me_ , but he did it for everyone.

I put the mug to my lips and closed my eyes. A little more alcohol and I wouldn't have to think about it any more. Down this pint, then the next. Go home, pass out. Pretend everything could be like it used to be.

I opened my eyes and lowered the full glass back to the bar top. He understood something I refused to understand, and in the end he'd died for it. I had something to live for, something he'd died for. I could be what he truly was and what they only thought _I_ was.

I stood from my stool and pulled the phone from my pocket and called up a number I hadn't dialed in years, but one I knew would connect all the same. I hesitated for just a moment before I pressed the button.

The line rang three times and was answered with a wordless click.

"I'm ready to come in from the cold."

There was a hesitation from the other side of the line, before a soft voice answered back. _"Welcome home, Pilot Soryu."_

-End


End file.
